Royal Music Association Music and Philosophy Study Group Conference
Kings College, London
13th – 14th July 2017

Music in Video Games Panel
Conveners: William Gibbons and Derek Matravers

There has been great deal of interest in the past few years within musicology and music theory in the contribution of music to the experience of playing video games. The topic has been relatively neglected in philosophy, although it is related to several extant discussions concerning other media. We would like to invite papers from any discipline which reflect on this topic, thus contributing to developing a philosophical take on the role of music in video games.

Topics of interest might include (but are not limited to):

• The contribution of music to the experience of playing video games.
• The relation between the music and other aspects of the video game, in particular the game’s narrative content
• The contribution of music to the nature of video games and their status as art
• The ontological status of video game music between real and virtual worlds
• The role of games in (re)defining the musical act
• Video games and the idea of musical play
Proposals of no longer than 300 words should be submitted to Derek Matravers (derek.matravers@open.ac.uk) with the subject heading “MPSG Themed Session” by 15th October 2016.

Registration for this event is now open. Please go to the Owning Our Emotions conference website for the full programme and for instructions on how to register for the conference.

If you have any questions about this event, please contact our conference administrator Ms Yvonne Bartley at arts-philosophy-events@open.ac.uk

Christopher Yorke, an Open University PhD student in Philosophy, has won the R. Scott Kretchmar Graduate Student Essay Prize awarded by the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport conference, in September in Greece. This is the biggest conference in Philosophy of Sport, and there’s only one prize. Congratulations Chris!

The essay that won him the prize is called ‘Endless Summer: What Kinds of Games will Suits’ Utopians Play?’

Derek Matravers answers questions about his book, Fiction and Narrative, put to him by Michel-Antoine Xhignesse for ASAGE, an online journal in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. The opener:

“For those of our readers who may not have had a chance to read your book yet, could you explain its main thrust?”

Go here to read his answer, and to find out why he is so appalled by Wind in the Willows (“Give one iota of thought to it, and it just falls to bits. It starts looking utterly horrific: animals talking to each other one moment, and then sticking each other between slices of bread and eating one another the next”).

This year the central topic of the summer school organized by the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences (SCAS) is “Emotion, fiction, and virtual worlds”.

A growing body of research is highlighting the potential power of new technologies such as virtual reality, robotics, videogames or human-computer interaction for health and learning purposes. Much of the current research, however, fails to bridge the gap between technology, virtual worlds and fundamental theoretical or empirical constructs such as emotions, immersion and reality, user engagement and related motivational aspects, as well as social interactions. ISSAS 2016 will address those gaps by discussing the role of emotions in fictional (e.g. novels) and virtual worlds (such as virtual reality worlds or videogames).

The scientific program for 2016 comprises plenary lectures from leading scholars in the field, discussions sessions and workshops aimed at theoretical integration and fostering new research ideas, group work in which the students design an interdisciplinary research project that will be presented and discussed on the last day.

The Open University’s Derek Matravers is one of these leading scholars. For more details, follow this link.

And you don’t even need to be in Australia to do so: Rescuing the beautiful. She talks with Joe Gelonesi on the question, ‘Would you do something simply because it is the beautiful thing to do?’

The original broadcast was on Feb 11 2016. Other programmes in ABC Radio National’s Philosopher’s Zone series can be found on their past programmes page.